TV Heartbeat Interview! Chatting with the stars of FX’s Fargo before tonight’s finale! The time jump! Interacting with Fans! The whole Fargo experience!

Tonight is the last episode of Fargo?
Aw geez! I think I’m gonna barf!!!

Sadly our last visit to Fargo is tonight’s finale which caps off a stellar season. Before we say goodbye, Allison Tolman (Molly Solverson Grimly) and Colin Hanks (Gus Grimly) share some parting thoughts about this show!

Allison: Unfortunately and fortunately for me, I’ll compare every project I do moving forward to Fargo.

Yes, the process of making Fargo was as amazing for the cast and crew as it was for the fans to watch. TV veteran Colin Hanks, puts the experience into perspective:

Colin: I think for me having been on a couple of TV shows and been doing this for a while, the reception that it’s got, the quality of the show, the quality of the people that we made the show with, all of that was pretty evident while we were making it and while it’s being aired, so I’m just enjoying it as much as I can and trying to experience as much of it as I can because it’s not always like this. And I’m sure I probably sounded like a grumpy grandpa to Allison a few times saying like “Really just sort of take all this in as much as you can because, A, it’s very rarely like this, but more importantly, it’ll never be like this again because it’s your first show.”

Any great show has to have great writing and there is universal praise by the cast for writer/showrunner Noah Hawley (Bones).

Colin: Noah, the way that he writes, not just his dialogue but the scene descriptions, things like that, are so nuanced that it is kind of like reading a novel, and I enjoyed sitting down and reading each script, which again, doesn’t happen very often.

While the show is based off the excellent Coen brothers’ film, the show is original and keeps you guessing, including the surprising time jump, something the actors took in stride.

Allison: We had an inkling because the crew heads get the scripts before we do so they can start to plan for the next thing. So, when they told me they wanted to cut ten inches off my hair, I was like well, either she goes into a prison camp or time is shifting somewhere.

Colin: I thought that A, it was a fantastic choice on Noah’s part, and B, I think that the way that the characters interacted obviously everyone was very much rooting for Gus and Molly to get together, so I thought it was really sort of a nice twist to let that be the sort of courtship that the audience sees because the audience can put everything else together, and they can imagine how the logging festival went and so forth. So, I thought it was really cool and it was nice to be able to just jump to the good stuff, so to speak.

Allison: We both think that getting past that kind of bumbling stage for both of them, we stayed in that stage for just long enough, and getting to skip past courtship was kind of cool actually. It kind of missed how painful that probably would have been between these two sort of awkward people.

Colin: When I read it [the transition scene], I thought that’s sweet, but when I saw it, I just started laughing hysterically. That Fargo score comes up, here is Gus delivering the mail in the most dramatic fashion possible. I thought it was really great.

And speaking of great, through social media and screenings, the actors have been able to feel the love from the great viewer feedback.

Allison: I got on set with Keegan [FBI Agent Pepper] and Jordan [FBI Agent Budge] and they were both like “We’re so excited we get to play this scene [where they recognize Molly’s theories]! We’re so excited we get to be the ones who finally give her some recognition!” I was like: “I guess you’re right, this is really—this is a big deal, and it’s a long time coming.” So, that kind of drove it home and that made that scene really fun to play.

Allison: We premiered that episode at a festival in Austin, and so, we watched the episode in a big theatre full of people and in that moment in the diner when…she realizes that someone is going to finally listen to her, this huge cheer came up in the theatre, and I was like: “oh, that’s so cool!” People [have] been sort of suffering with Molly for this whole time, and getting to see her have that breakthrough was like so cathartic for all the fans. It was really neat.

Colin: Normally, I’m used to people tweeting me about movies from ten years ago or something like that. So, it’s nice to sort of know that come Tuesday night, we sort of get this instant feedback from actual fans that watch the show from all over the world. It’s really cool.

Allison: There’s always some complainers and there’s always some just trolls. That just happens, but as far as, like, actual human beings who are actually watching the show and giving us actual feedback, I think that it’s been overwhelmingly positive, and it has a really great really loyal fan base.

The show has a loyal fan base of both viewers and critics, many of whom would love to see another season for this show which is officially called a mini-series. Have they heard anything about it?

Allison: If we have a second season or a second installment in the anthology, they’ve talked about skipping around in time either backwards or forwards, so we could be back or we could not be back. It’s just depending upon what they want to do and if they want to go forward or backwards in time,

Colin: Noah was pretty adamant that if we were lucky enough to be in that position that obviously the story would have to come first. I totally respect Noah to the utmost degree that he would come up with the most engaging second season of Fargo that he possibly could and whether Gus is involved in that or not is out of my control, but regardless, if he calls saying “hey do you want to come back?”, I’d be there in a heartbeat.

So what can we expect to see in tonight’s finale?

Colin: I really think that it comes to a pretty great conclusion that I hope is satisfying to the viewers.

Allison: My favorite scene with Bob [Officer Bill Oswalt] is actually coming up, and Bob is such a fantastic comedian, but he’s also just a really tremendous actor and kind of getting to watch him sort of take off the clown makeup and really just play a really honest scene which we’ll see [tonight] was really a treat for me.

Allison: I hope that fans will feel like the ending is satisfying and makes sense but also that they didn’t see it coming…I think that all the ends are tied up properly and everything is where it should be.

Remember tonight is the 90 minute season finale of Fargo on FX! But we’ll have one more trip to Fargo with an interview with Billy Bob Thornton on the angel and devil inside of Malvo and being a fan of the show.

Stay tuned!

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